From Pope to Virat Kohli to Mamata Banerjee... Twitter pulls plug on legacy blue ticks; sparks meme fest

Only accounts that have the Twitter Blue subscription or those who are affiliated with Twitter, can now retain the blue ticks.

Vipin Vijayan

First Published Apr 21, 2023, 1:11 AM IST | Last Updated Apr 21, 2023, 1:16 AM IST

The blue ticks have started disappearing from Twitter accounts. That includes the likes of football star Cristiano Ronaldo, US rapper Jay-Z, the Pope, cricketer Virat Kohli and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Twitter has removed "legacy" blue ticks from verified accounts. Only accounts that have the Twitter Blue subscription or those who are affiliated with the company, now retain the blue ticks. Paying for the blue tick was one of the first decisions taken by Tesla CEO Elon Musk when he bought over Twitter for 44 billion Dollars last October.

To subscribe to Twitter Blue, Twitter mandates that the applying account must be active in the past 30 days. Besides, the account also must not show signs of being misleading or deceptive.

The cost of trying to acquire a Blue subscription varies from country to country. In India, Twitter is charging Rs 900 per month via smartphones. The cost lowers to Rs 650 per month for the Twitter website. Annual subscription costs are relatively cheaper.

Twitter has also introduced new gold and silver checkmarks for official organisations and government accounts respectively.

Meanwhile, the vanishing blue ticks sparked a meme fest. Let's take a look: